The Decameron

The next storyteller is Emilia. A poor man named Martuccio loves the daughter of a wealthy family named Gostanza. Her father says that Martuccio is “too poor” (630) to marry Gostanza. Hoping to make himself rich, Martuccio leaves his hometown. He quickly discovers that the quickest way to become wealthy is through piracy but he is caught and thrown in jail. When Gostanza hears a rumor that Martuccio is dead, she decides “to put an end to her life” (631). She takes a small boat without a rudder or oars and takes to the sea, only for the waves to carry her to Tunis, where Martuccio is reported to have died. During her journey, Martuccio wins his freedom by fighting in a war for the King of Tunis. He is awarded “a high position in the King’s favor” (635) with money and a title, meaning that—by the time Gostanza finds him—he is able to marry her and return to Italy.

The next storyteller is Elissa. Pietro Boccamazza comes from a wealthy Roman family. Though he loves a young woman named Agnolella, his family do not approve of her because her family is not rich. Rather than be apart, the couple decides to “elope from Rome altogether” (639). When they become lost, however, they are attacked by a band of soldiers. Pietro is captured by the soldiers but Agnolella escapes. She runs away and, after a night hiding in a cottage, she reaches a nearby castle. Meanwhile, the soldiers believe that Pietro is from a local rival group. As they take him back to the castle, soldiers from that rival group attack. Pietro escapes and spends the night hiding in the woods, avoiding wolves and soldiers. In the morning, he reaches the same castle where Agnolella is currently staying with “a devout and exceedingly worthy woman” (644). When the lady of the castle hears what happened to the young lovers, she offers to host their wedding. She also reaches out to Pietro’s family to resolve their problems.

The next storyteller is Filostrato. Lizio is the father of Caterina, a charming and attractive young woman. A local young man named Ricciardo spends many days wandering Lizio’s estate and soon falls “passionately in love” (648) with Caterina. However, Caterina and Ricciardo must plot carefully to spend any time together. They plan to meet one night on the balcony outside Lizio’s bedroom. When Ricciardo climbs up to meet her, they spend the night together, “causing the nightingale to sing at frequent intervals” (652). They fall asleep naked in one another’s arms, where they are discovered the next day by Lizio. Instead of becoming angry, Lizio accepts that Ricciardo is “a rich young man, and comes of noble stock” (653). He ensures that Ricciardo marries Caterina right away, without giving them time to find their clothes. The couple lives happily ever after.

The next storyteller is Neifile. Agnesa is a 10-year-old girl who is raised by her father Guidotto’s friend, Giacomino da Pavia. When she grows up to be an attractive young woman, she has many suitors. Giannole and Minghino are two local men who fall “so violently in love with her that their jealousy and hatred of each other surpassed all bounds” (657). They try to kidnap her at the same time, meaning that they begin to fight each other. Their attempts prompt Giacomino to tell the truth about her childhood. He reveals that she was found by Guidotto while Guidotto was part of an army that was campaigning in the area. Coincidently, one of the local men knows the story of the two-year-old girl who was taken away during a war. He reveals that Agnesa’s true father is Bernabuccio, who confirms her identity by remembering “a small scar above her left ear in the shape of a cross” (661). Bernabuccio’s son is Giannole, so Giacomino agrees that Agnesa should marry Minghino.

The next storyteller is Pampinea. Gianni and Restituta are a young couple whose lives are interrupted when Restituta is kidnapped by “a number of young Sicilians” (664), who take her to their king as a gift. When Gianni tries to rescue his lover, he falls asleep in her bedroom. The next day, the king discovers that “Gianni and the girl were lying there asleep and naked in one another’s arms” (667). The King sentences both lovers to death. As they are about to be burned at the stake, one of the King’s admirals recognizes Gianni and Restituta as the children of some of the King’s supporters. The King stays the execution and organizes a wedding to “make amends, through largesse and hospitality, for the indignity he had caused them to suffer” (670) before sending the couple home.

The next storyteller is Lauretta. Teodoro is enslaved and sent to the estate of Amerigo, after being captured by pirates as a young boy growing up near the Kingdom of Armenia. Because he seems to be of a higher social class than the other slaves, Teodoro is “brought up in the house along with Messer Amerigo’s children” (672) and eventually trusted enough to run Amerigo’s business affairs. Amerigo’s daughter, Violante, is of a similar age. She lives on Amerigo’s estate and Teodoro falls in love with her. They become lovers and, soon after, Violante becomes “pregnant, much to the dismay of both parties” (674). Though they try at first, they cannot hide the secret child from Amerigo. Under the threat of death, Violante eventually reveals that Teodoro is the father of her child. Amerigo decides to hang Teodoro, while Violante has the option of being killed by poison or dagger, “whichever of the two means she prefers” (677). Just as Teodoro is being led to his execution, however, ambassadors from Armenia pass by and recognize his birthmark. One of the ambassadors recognizes Teodoro as his son. He begs Amerigo to stop the executions and to allow Teodoro to marry Violante. Once married, Teodoro and Violante return to Armenia with Teodoro’s father.

The next storyteller is Filomena. Nastagio feels an unrequited love for the daughter of a nobleman named Paolo Traversari. She is “a girl of far more noble lineage than his own” (682). Not only does she not return his love, but she is also cruel and vindictive toward him. Nastagio decides to leave the city. He travels through the countryside and camps in a forest. While camping, he sees a knight chasing “a naked woman, young and very beautiful” (684) through a forest with a pack of dogs. Nastagio tries to intervene, only to discover that the woman and the knight are ghosts. They are “condemned to eternal punishment” (685), forced to repeat this brutal scene forever. In life, the knight loved the woman. She did not return his love and the knight killed himself. When the woman died a short time later, they were locked into a ghostly cycle in which he must chase after her for the rest of time. Each time, he must kill her with the same dagger that he used to commit suicide. Then, he must cut up her flesh and feed it to his dogs. Nastagio brings Paolo and his daughter to the forest to witness the ghosts. After seeing the ghosts, she agrees to marry Nastagio.

The next storyteller is Fiammetta. Federigo degli Alberighi loves a married woman named Monna Giovanna. He takes part in a jousting tournament to impress her, then organizes festivals, parties, and banquets. He spends a fortune trying to attract her attention but she continues to ignore him. Eventually, he is “spending far more than he could afford and deriving no profit in return” (691) and becomes impoverished. All he has left is a farm and a falcon. When Giovanna’s husband dies, he leaves his estate to his son but—if his son dies without an heir—Giovanna may inherit everything. Giovanna and her son stay at the newly-inherited estate, which happens to be located near Federigo’s farm in Campi.

Federigo and Giovanna’s son become friends. They hunt together using Federigo’s falcon. When the boy becomes sick, he asks his mother if he can “have Federigo’s falcon” (692) to help him to recover. Swallowing her pride, Giovanna invites herself to Federigo’s house for dinner to apologize for the way she treated him. He accepts her invitation and, desperate to impress, tries to find something to cook for her. Finding nothing, he kills and cooks the falcon. After the “meal of the prize falcon” (694), Giovanna tells Federigo the reason for her visit. When she asks to borrow the falcon for her son, he weeps and tells her what has happened. Giovanna thanks him and returns to her son empty-handed. The boy dies and Giovanna inherits the estate. She mourns her loss and, as her family encourage her to marry again, she insists that she will only marry Federigo, despite his poverty, because she is impressed by his “magnanimity of spirit” (696). The couple marries and spend their lives together.

The final storyteller is Dioneo. The wealthy nobleman Pietro di Vinciolo has a reputation for preferring men to women. To combat this rumor, he marries a young woman but he cannot be happy with her. The woman, unsatisfied with her husband’s lack of romantic interest in her, takes a new lover. An elderly friend assures her that she would not be breaking any morals because her husband is uninterested in her and she is still young and attractive. The elderly friend agrees to find the young woman “a certain young man” (701). After a series of men secretly visit the house to sleep with the young woman, Pietro returns one night to find his wife’s lover hiding “beneath a chicken-coop” (702). Pietro is not annoyed. Instead, he and the young man are attracted to each other. Both husband and wife have sex with the young man and Pietro and his wife come to an arrangement “to the mutual satisfaction of all three parties” (707).